Current management of digitalis intoxication

Of the commonly used drugs, digitalis has one of the highest therapeutic-toxic ratios. Mortality is significantly increased in the 20% to 30% of patients on digitalis who are in a toxic state when admitted to the hospital. Successful use of digitalis depends on avoidance of its use in situations likely to result in toxicity; recognition of the signs, symptoms, and electrocardiographic findings of digitalis intoxication; and stopping digitalis completely as the initial treatment of digitalis intoxication.     

Kinetics of populations of enterocytes of experimental tumors of the large intestine in rats

To determine whether somatostatin, an inhibitor of glucagon and growth hormone secretion, might be useful as an adjunct to insulin the management of diabetic hyperglycaemia, seven insulin-requiring diabetic men were given somatostatin (100 microgram/h, IV) continuously for 3 days after their diabetes had been treated intensively by diet and insulin on a metabolic ward. During infusion of somatostatin and despite reduction in average insulin dose exceeding 50%, there was improvement in diabetic control as assessed by postprandial hyperglycaemia, 24-h glycosuria and the average daily serum glucose level and its fluctuation; when somatostatin was discontinued, but insulin doses held constant, diabetic control rapidly worsened. No adverse effects were observed. These results indicate that somatostatin plus insulin can be a more effective regimen than insulin alone in controlling diabetic hyperglycaemia. A longer acting and more selective somatostatin preparation may prove useful as an adjunct to insulin in the management of diabetes.     

Methicillin penetration into the cerebrospinal fluid of patients

Penetration of methicillin through the blood-liquor barrier in neurosurgical patients was studied. When administered in a dose of 2 gm the drug penetrated through the barrier in 1/3 of all observations within 1 to 3 hours. Increased liquor pressure in the patients resulted in prolongation of the antibiotic effect in the cerebrospinal fluid. The methicillin levels in the liquor were no sufficient for the growth inhibition of most methicillin sensitive staphylococci.     

Method of differential prognostication of pertussis morbidity

The authors present a method of differential prognostication of pertussis morbidity permitting to consider in prognostication the tendencies of individual subsets of the dynamic series which could be conditioned by individual causes. The general picture of the phenomenon to be prognosticated is obtained by superimposition of the values prognosticated by each of the segregated subsets.     

Archiving and absolute quantitation of solutes separated by single charged droplet coulomb explosion

The electrospray (ES) ion source relies on the transfer of low-volatility solutes to the gas phase as an outcome of coulomb explosion events of charged droplets generated by electrical atomization. Introduced here are two methods for archiving compounds separated by coulomb explosion of single droplets having net charge that had been levitated in an electrodynamic balance. We categorized compounds separated by the explosion as either material ejected, including progeny droplets, or the material retained in the main residue. The potential for this methodology is illustrated by (i) qualitative characterization of solute states, aqueous versus precipitated in the separated material, and (ii) absolute quantitation of solutes separated by such an event. For a droplet containing 5 x 10(7) 20-nm-diameter fluospheres, its first encountered coulomb explosion event resulted in the ejection of 1.70% of them. The capability to acquire such detailed information regarding the individual steps in the process of transferring low-volatility solutes to the gas phase in an ES ion source is essential to develop strategies for absolute quantitation in applications of ES mass spectrometry.     

Apparatus for preparing mimics of suspended particles in the troposphere and their controlled deposition onto individual lung cells in culture with measurement of downstream biological response

Inhalation exposure to particles <10 microm in size that are suspended in the troposphere (PM10) is a factor in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. The extent of the injury, local to systemic inflammation, is dependent on the number, size, and composition of the particles to which an individual is exposed. The physical properties of and compounds on PM10 that are responsible for these adverse effects on human health are the subject of intense investigation. Here, we report a laboratory method that involved the creation of 1-120 particles per trial that were of known size and composition, followed by deposition of them directly onto individual human lung cells within a cell culture, and after an incubation period, a downstream biological response was measured. To illustrate this methodology, particles that each contained 50 pg of lipopolysaccharide were created and deposited onto individual cells over a region <0.36 mm2 within a genetically modified A549 cell culture. The biological readout was the relative expression of intercellular cell adhesion molecule 1 after 24 h of incubation using an immunocytochemistry assay. The apparatus and methodology introduced here enables studies at the interface between the relevant but diverse areas of atmospheric particle chemistry and lung cell biology to identify the chemical and physical factors of PM10 that cause/exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular diseases by triggering various biological pathways.     

Nanocomposite bulk of mechanically milled Al-Pb samples consolidated pore-free by the high-energy rate forming technique

It is shown that pore-free bulk samples were produced by the high-energy rate forming axis-symmetrical powder compaction method for different application purposes in case of the very different, immiscible Al and Pb metal pair. The starting Al-Pb nanocomposites were made by mechanical milling of atomized Al and Pb powders either in a SPEX 9000 or a Fritsch Pulverisette 4 mill. Due to the conditions that milling was carried out in air, the PbO layer, originally existing at the surface of the atomized Pb powder, ruptured and was also dispersed in the composite. The presence of the nano PbO particles was proven by XRD and TEM (BF, DF, SAED). When the energy of milling was high, the PbO crystallites became so small that they could hardly be seen by XRD technique. Local distribution of the PbO nanoparticles was still visible in a TEM, using the process diffraction method. Both XRD and SAED proved to be useful for the evaluation of the results of the milling process and compaction.